Uniforms: Ducks don't need fake wings to fly

The OregonianLast Saturday, the Ducks broke out their new black uniforms -- complete with wings.

Over two decades the University of Oregon's football program has transformed from a perennial loser to year-in-year-out winner. This season the Ducks will attend their 16th bowl game in 20 years after previously going more than a quarter-century without any postseason appearances.
But a less favorable trait hounds Mike Bellotti's team today: Oregon is the laughing stock of uniforms.

College football is all about tradition: renewing old rivalries under autumn skies, and generations watching their team together. Championship-winning programs like Notre Dame, Penn State and Alabama embody this continuity through exquisitely simple uniforms. A stripe on the pants or a splash of school color is all these teams need to look great.

Oregon's uniforms used to look traditional too, resembling the NFL's Green Bay Packers. But in 1999 a bold new Ducks uniform debuted, courtesy of Nike. It featured a brilliantly simple but evocative "O" logo (soon adopted university-wide) on innovative light-refracting green helmets. The jersey-pants combination, all green with wide yellow stripes down the side, made the newly emerging Joey Harrington-era Ducks look like comic-book super heroes. The look showed the college football world that whatever they lacked in winning tradition, Oregon's future was now.

Watching their 2002 Fiesta Bowl win on DVD or YouTube, the uniforms still look great. But since then, the school and Nike have continued to tinker, bringing ever-more mixed results. A 2002 redesign during the Kellen Clemens era bolstered the kits' interchangeability and introduced yellow as a major presence, but replaced pants stripes with ugly blobs. Far worse, the 2005 redesign favored a militaristic look with faux-diamond plating on the shoulders during the height of the controversial Iraq war.

Last Saturday for the final home game of the year the Ducks debuted their latest uniforms, which somehow seem dated already. Not only has Nike introduced black as a third Oregon color (shared with archrival Oregon State), but they've again favored a faux-militaristic look, albeit more historic. Instead of diamond plating, a wreath of feathers is printed on the jersey shoulders; the graphics of the wreath also strongly resemble ancient Greco-Roman armor. Nike, after all, takes its name from the ancient Greece's winged goddess of victory. This same postmodern design sensibility exists architecturally in the much-maligned Portland building downtown, with its ridiculous facade of faux garlands. College football players don't need faux armor ironed onto their jerseys to look tough. They already are tough.

Nike was founded on UO's campus, and CEO Phil Knight has donated hundreds of millions to his alma mater. The football team's rise in fortunes, particularly since the 1994 Rose Bowl season, has paralleled Knight-funded upgrades to Autzen Stadium and its surrounding facilities. That's without even mentioning Oregon's extravagant Knight-funded basketball arena soon to break ground, or other campus buildings he helped fund such as the law library.

It's not to say Nike shouldn't be designing or even continually updating Oregon's uniforms. Its Beaverton campus is stocked with apparel design talent, and the uniforms have already brought newfound cache with talented young recruits.

But as the Civil War approaches, as a lifelong Oregon fan I can't help but feel jealous of Oregon State: not because they could go to the Rose Bowl this year, but because Nike gave the Beavers refreshingly classic-looking uniforms. Can't the Ducks be a winner without wearing fake wings?

Brian Libby is the author of "Tales from the Oregon Ducks Sideline" and "The University of Oregon Football Vault" as well as a visual arts critic for The Oregonian.